The invention relates to a local area network operating in the asynchronous transfer mode comprising a plurality of terminals which are formed each by a station, a radio device for transmitting data between the terminals and a network interface including a controller at least provided for setting up a connection, and comprising a switch unit for switching cells between radio device, station and controller.
A Local Area Network LAN operating in the asynchronous transfer mode is known from EP 0 660 567 A2. This network comprises network interfaces which include each a transmitter device for transmitting cells between the individual network interfaces. Cells are transmitted according to a ring principle. A network interface always transmits cells via the ring, ie always to a neighbouring network interface. If necessary, the cells are to be transferred to their destination via a plurality of other network interfaces. For the load-dependent assignment of time slots for the transmission of cells, a distribution means assigns time slots to the network interfaces.